Happiness and Misery

The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.

Mark Twain, in Happiness and Misery

Everything human is pathetic. The secret source of humor itself is not joy but sorrow.

Mark Twain, in Happiness and Misery

Be good and you will be lonesome.

Mark Twain, Following the Equator, in Happiness and Misery and Vice and Virtue

A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.

Mark Twain, in Happiness and Misery

Sloppy, raggedy-assed old life. I love it. I never want to die.

Dennis Trudell, in Happiness and Misery and Life and Death

Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.

Henry David Thoreau, in Happiness and Misery

When the world has once begun to use us ill, it afterwards continues the same treatment with less scruple or ceremony, as men do to a whore.

Jonathan Swift, in Happiness and Misery

Every heart that has beat strong and cheerfully has left a hopeful impulse behind it in the world, and bettered the tradition of mankind.

Robert Louis Stevenson, in Happiness and Misery

He has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much.

Bessie Stanley, in Happiness and Misery and Success and Failure

Anxiety is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind. If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained.

Arthur Somers Roche, in Happiness and Misery

Trouble is part of your life -- if you don't share it, you don't give the person who loves you a chance to love you enough.

Dinah Shore, in Happiness and Misery

Poverty doesn't bring unhappiness; it brings degradation.

George Bernard Shaw, in Happiness and Misery and Wealth and Poverty

A lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it; it would be hell on earth.

George Bernard Shaw, in Happiness and Misery

It is not in the stars to hold our destiny, but in ourselves.

William Shakespeare, in Happiness and Misery

A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants.

Arthur Schopenhauer, in Happiness and Misery

I'm an idealist. I don't know where I'm going, but I'm on my way.

Carl Sandburg, in Happiness and Misery

Man is only happy as he finds a work worth doing, and does it well.

E. Merrill Root, in Happiness and Misery and Work and Recreation

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

Eleanor Roosevelt, in Happiness and Misery

What makes old age so sad is not that our joys but our hopes cease.

Jean Paul Richter, in Happiness and Misery and Life and Death

Don't underestimate the value of doing nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering.

Joan Powers, Pooh's Little Instruction Book, in Happiness and Misery